Judge Judy Sheindlin is hanging up her gavel after 25 seasons. Judge Judy’s final episode will air this year, 2021. Tom has been a HUGE fan of Judge Judy for a long time. Only on occasion have we thought she may have ruled the wrong way, but it's a rarity. We like her style of calling idiots as idiots. We also like the way that she tells people that they need to assume responsibility for their actions. It's also surprising how many people beg others for money and suddenly think the money is a "gift" even though they promised to pay it back!
Here's (an excerpt of) the story from the UK Guardian, and an interview from her 1993 interview with 60 minutes when she was in family court (before she appeared on television):>>>
VIDEO: 60 Minutes Interview: Judge Judy Before TV (1993)
Judge Judith Sheindlin is known in New York City Family Court for her testy attitude and harsh lectures. But she says there's a reason she's so tough: She is determined to improve the lives of the families she encounters. Includes rare footage of Judge Judy in court. This interview and profile also takes us behind the scenes to look at her family.
“I always said, if you’re smart, you’re supposed to go out of any profession when you’re on top,” Sheindlin says by phone. “If you decide to stay too long at the party, your makeup begins to fade.”
In September 1996, just shy of her 54th birthday, Sheindlin began a new chapter in show business, without an agent or any previous experience. (Her husband, a former New York supreme court justice, went on to appear on The People’s Court from 1999 to 2001 – though, she says, “he was always a support for me”.)
Sheindlin quickly made herself indispensable to CBS. Her approach to remuneration is famous: every three years, she went to a steakhouse with the network president and handed him an envelope with her desired figure inside. When a newcomer once tried to give her an envelope of his own, Sheindlin told him: “This isn’t a negotiation.”
That envelope was last reported to say $47m (£33m), on top of the $200m CBS paid her in 2017 for rights to the show’s library. As a later-in-life celebrity, Sheindlin says, she was never at risk of being swept away. “I still remember the lean years.”
But the fact that Sheindlin is one of the highest-paid personalities in television adds bite to criticisms of her show as “poverty porn”. Those who appear on Judge Judy apply to do so and are paid a fee. But critics, such as the lawyer Sarah Jaffe, writing in Slate last year, have said its success lies in watching “vulnerable people be subjected to humiliation”.
“This is sport for me,” shouts Sheindlin at a complainant in her courtroom, in one of the many YouTube compilations of her “best savage moments”.
Sheindlin rejects the idea that she is ever “gratuitously nasty or mean, without trying to make a point”. But, she adds, “for those idiot critics in the legal field who say ‘she gives judges a bad reputation’ … It’s TV, folks. You want to sit in a regular courtroom, go to a courtroom.”
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